


For Sale: Baby Shoes

by saperks



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, F/M, Family Planning, Forced Pregnancy, Hiroko's Past, I Don't Explain the Mpreg, Implied Unhealthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Katsuki Hiroko Centric, M/M, Mpreg, None of the angst is between Yuuri and Viktor, Referenced suicide, So Do Yuuri's Parents, THIS IS A HAPPY FIC, Unplanned Pregnancy, Viktor and Yuuri Have A Healthy Relationship, i think, just go with it, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 11:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13480542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saperks/pseuds/saperks
Summary: It hurts a little, driving Yuuri and Viktor off to the airport, especially so soon after the baby shower, but Hiroko knows that she has to let them go. Let Yuuri be in Russia with Viktor, give birth in a foreign country, away from all his family and friends. Not because he’s following the man that he loves, but because of his commitment to the dreams that he has.She no longer sees her mother’s reflection in Yuuri’s face.Or, an exploration of Hiroko's past and present through the pregnancies in her life.





	For Sale: Baby Shoes

**Author's Note:**

> I was really happy to write this, even though this was nothing at all what I planned it to be. I look forward to hearing your feed back guys, enjoy.  
> Refer to end note on the topic of triggers.

_ First Trimester: Hiroko _

In the summer of 1986 when Hiroko Nakamura married Toshiya Katsuki she was already pregnant. She should have felt ashamed, embarrassed, contrite- but she felt nothing but warmth for the baby growing inside her.    
  
It’s not something that many people beyond Toshiya know, but there was a fire in her when she was young. A raw edge that came from being a child in a family with too many mouths, and too many bills, and so many people, that it was easy to become forgettable. To slip between the cracks of daughter and extra if she wasn’t loud enough, brash enough, to make herself known. 

Toshiya always told her he fell in love with her passion, her determination; but she fell for him because of the quite ease that surrounded him, as if the hot springs themselves made him.  
  
Before she was pregnant, before she was married to a husband and a hot spring, she never would have imagined what a job in a provincial fishing village would lead too. That a flame tamed and tapered into domesticity would make her happy-but it has. It has, and she’s never regretted it.   
  
When Yuuko is pregnant she knows it instantly. Hiroko remembers a mother, and a father, and a cycle of roundness in her mother’s belly. Remembers all the babies she held, and changed, and laughed with, and yelled at. She remembers the tension, and disappointment of another baby, and another one, again and again. She remembers the horror of helping her mother late one night.  
  
_“Come here Hiro-chan, help your mama out.”_ __  
__  
_“This is how to throw away a pregnancy Hiro-chan”_ __  
__  
_“It’s all going to be alright Hiro-chan, I’ve done it before.”_ __  
  
She remembers the horror and the blood and the shaking; shaking so hard before recognizing that it was her hands, not her mother's body that was moving like that.  
  
Hiroko hadn’t been ashamed of her pregnancy, but she had been scared. Scared of being abandoned, of being alone, of having to get rid of her child and crawling back to that forsaken home.   
  
When she saw Yuuko, barely out of high school, bloched cheeked and with tension and shame written throughout her body she knew and she comforted.  And, when Takeshi came around asking for her, tenderness in his voice and nervousness wrangling his hands, she knew they would be nothing like her own parents.  
_______  
  
There was false cheer in her mother’s voice as he told her of her future,  
  
_“A small job cooking at an onsen Hiro-chan. The town is quiet but it’s still a tourist spot so there will be lots to do”_ __  
  
It’s the last memory she has of him.

_ There was an old woman who lived in a shoe _ __  
_ She had so many children she didn’t know what to do. _ __  
  


It’s an old Western rhyme she read once in a book. It’s one that always reminded her of her mother.She’d thought then, that her mother was trying to get rid of her, one less mouth to feed. One less person to look after. 

\--

  
She moved to Hatsetsu at the end of winter in ‘84. In the spring she became friends with the son of the owner. In the summer she was flying on love, her steps were flighty and dainty, and the whole world was perfect. She was happy, truly happy for the first time in her life. She had friends, she had love. She had a place where she felt like a whole person, instead of a name in a mess of children.    
  
And in the fall that follows her first summer of love, the fall before the summer of her pregnancy,  she gets the letter of her mother’s suicide. 

______   
The summer that Yuuri comes home with the Russian boy Hatsetsu is everything and nothing like the year that she and Toshiya met.   
  
The Onsen is the same. There are still baths indoors and outside. There are still big ones and small ones. Part of it still functions as a home for the owners. She’s still the cook.   
  
And yet, there are little changes. Changes in the light fixtures, in the tiling, in the arrangement of plants. The plates are different than when she first started working there; now a hard, faux ceramic type plastic after Mari and Yuuri  broke so many when they were young.    
  
The tourism is different too. It had never been a particularly busy place, and even now they make just enough to stay afloat, but customers are all so much older than they were before. The majority of people that come to the Onsen are the same people that have been coming in the thirty two plus years that Hiroko has been working there.    
  
Hiroko knows she’s been getting older. In her early fifties she’s older than her mother ever lived to be, but it isn’t until she sees her boy in person for the first time in five years that she really feels it. One day there will be no one to remember the onsen as it was; her and Toshiya, and the rest of their friends and customers will all be gone.    
  
The memories of the summers of their youthful indiscretions will be gone with them. Toshiya himself had never been anything less than a perfect gentleman to her, both then and now. He had been shy, stammering, and nervous when they first met. And she had been loud, brash, and at least a little too crude for small town sensibilities.    
  
But she had laughed when he made jokes, and he had listened when she talked. It wasn’t a lot at first. Even now, Hiroko knows if she hadn’t taken his hand in hers while they stood watching fireworks at a midsummer festival so many years ago, nothing would have grown between them. But she had known what she wanted then, made a choice, and worked to make it grow. That he was willing, willing to build love, and later life with her, had helped the process along.   
  
When Yuuri sits her and Toshiya down to ask if Viktor can stay to coach him she sees a life of love waiting to be built between the two of them.    
___   
When Yuuri and Viktor come back to spend the next summer she knows they think they are subtle. Her boy has always prized his privacy, and it’s why she doesn’t say anything. She knows that they will come to her when they are ready.   
  
It warms her though, when the two of them come in from their morning runs, faces flushed with exercise and laughter. When they sit next to each other at meals, so close their knees touch. 

When Viktor looks at Yuuri, it softens the steel she didn’t know she still had in her. Viktor looks at Yuuri the way that Toshiya looked at her--looks at her still. It gives her a reassurance she did not know she needed.    
  
Viktor will never treat her son the way her father treated her mother.   
  
When she passes Yuuri’s room at night a small smile graces her lips while she shakes her head softly. She doesn’t understand how they think no one knows what they get up to. The walls are thin in the onsen, and it’s only though years of practice that her and Toshiya manage to keep it quiet. It’s humorous, when they were young, her own mother and father in law probably had the same thoughts. The cyclical nature of life in the onsen goes on through them; it is better this cycle than the cycle of her own past, abandoned, and rugged, and painful.   
_____

  
She is sure she notices before Yuuri does. Where Yuuko had been distraught and ashamed of herself, Yuuri merely thinks he’s sick. Of course, these things manifest differently in men; and Hiroko knows that it’s only because of so many years of experience throughout her childhood that she catches on so quickly.  She never really noticed Yuuri’s similarities to her mother, was probably even willfully ignorant. But now, faced with the same situation she had been many years ago, the likeness is striking.    
  
Sometimes, when nostalgia tints her life before Hatsetsu, she wishes she had photographs of her mother- but she never wanted to see that picture in Yuuri.   
  
She hears them talking late one night, they’re sitting outside in a secluded part of the onsen in the summer heat about what they should do. She tenses, and it’s jarring how different the conversation is from the one her parents would have had, but also very much the same.   
  
Yuuri and Viktor are talking; and she knows that Viktor respects Yuuri too much to demand that he keep or lose the child. That ultimately, rightfully, it will be Yuuri’s own choice.

  
She walks away, but she hopes; she hopes and hopes and hopes that Yuuri will keep the baby.      
_____   
  
They’re all sitting down for dinner on one of the rare nights the onsen is closed. Toshiya by her side, Mari across, and Viktor and Yuuri squeezed into the same space. Throughout dinner Yuuri is restless, nerves eating away at him while Viktor holds his hands discreetly under the table; and Hiroko knows this is the night when he tells them.   
  
Hiroko’s not the only one whose perceptive, and the look Toshiya shares with her lets her know that he knows as well. Yuuri starts, gripping Viktors hand harder, and starting at an indiscernible spot on the table.    
  
“I…um, I’m. What I mean to say is--”   
  
Mari, never one to let Yuuri stew and build himself up to a panic, interrupts casually, as if she’s tired of waiting.   
  
“We all know you’re pregnant little brother.”   
  
And Yuuri sputters, gapes at his family, as if after all this time away he’s forgotten how perspective they can be. How intuned they all are to one another.   
  
“But...I… um, what? You know? You all knw?”   
  
They all nod, smiling. And even though none of them ever discussed it, when Toshiya says “We were just waiting for you to come to us,” the words ring truer than any explanation to be given.   
  
Her son is at a loss for words, and its wonderful just how much times have changed.   
__    
  
Hiroko has a small family now. There’s Mari and Yuuri, Toshiya and herself. Enough that she can count on one hand and still have room leftover. After Yuuri was born she and Toshiya had themselves sterilized. While Toshiya would never force himself on her, never demand that she give more and more of herself each night until there was nothing left, she found comfort in knowing that there could be no more children.    
  
But, with all that said, she’s elated at becoming a grandmother. It’s a joy that resonates through her body and fills her with the same warmth and lightness from when her pregnancy with Yuuri was confirmed. Mari was an easy pregnancy, but despite how much she loved the child growing within her, there had still been so much she was unsure of. What would a child mean; was she going to become her mother; would Toshiya truly stay with her; would he change now that they were married, expect her to be his without also being hers? So many questions and so many fears.    
  
But, by the time Yuuri was born- almost seven years after Mari- she was confident in herself, confident in Toshiya, and extremely competent in birth control, and all the options- all the permanent options- she had. Yuuri was a baby planned and prepared for in a way she never knew was possible when she was younger.   
  
And while this baby wasn’t planned, it would be loved with the same ferocity and support that Hiroko’s own in laws had given her. Neither Yuuri or Viktor would be left to wonder about that. There would be no extra, unwanted children in her own family.   
\---   
It’s harder than Hiroko expects to throw a baby shower for Yuuri. She knows that despite the small upheaval the pregnancy has caused, Viktor plans to return to the ice- and where Viktor goes Yuuri will follow.    
  
She knows that she could convince them to stay, sit out a season or two. Have reassurance in the knowledge that they’re all safe and okay while they are with her; but Hiroko has never been one to hold her children back. Never one to ask for pieces of themselves that they hold dear to bring herself comfort.   
  
So, in the limited time that she has before they go off to Russia, she plans a baby shower.   
  
It starts off small, and its supposed to stay that way. The Katsukis, the Nishigoris, and Minako. But it’s a small town, and at twelve weeks Yuuri isn’t showing much but his morning sickness is just as bad as it was before. And when people start to talk, and put together the foreigner, and the weight gain, and the vomiting it isn’t long before people start asking her about her boy. At the onsen, at the market, accosting her during her walks through town.    
  
They might not be family in the strictest of senses, and they’re all definitely too nosey for their own good, but all of Hatsetsu has been rooting from Yuuri for the very beginning. And where once, Hiroko knows that Yuuri would have closed off to the world, retreated further into their home and into himself, her boy has grown; and he knows that he owes these people a debt of gratitude.     
  
  
The baby shower is fun. It’s the only way to describe it. Neighbor after neighbor, and customer after customer show up until the onsen is achingly packed. There are so many presents brought for the baby that Hiroko starts to stack them on a second table. The well-wishers bring joy to her heart, and when she looks at Yuuri she can tell he’s enjoying himself even if it’s more than what he’s normally comfortable with.    
  
\--   
The first time Hiroko sees Minako shes been working at the onsen for about two years, and she’s anxious. She’s taken three pregnancy tests and has hidden a fourth and a fifth one away. Maybe it’s excessive at this point, but Hiroko is nothing if not meticulous. She has to be sure, before she makes any decisions on what to do.   
  
Minako herself is with a troupe of other girls, dancers all lithe and flexing in unbelievable ways. They’re all so pretty, and tall, and willowy. Hiroko knows what she looks like. When she first came to Hatsetsu she was so scrawny and small, flat in a way that wasn’t at all attractive.    
  
When she arrived at the onsen Mama Katsuki took one look at her, gave her a wide smile, and said “ We’ll be sure to fatten you up.”   
  
She hadn’t minded then, the shift from hunger to indulgence was an extremely pleasant transition; but looking at all the graceful poise in the shape and posture of the dancers made something ache in Hiroko that she never knew existed.    
  
As she passed them on her way back to the kitchen, Minako- even then with a fondness for alcohol- called her over to bring them drinks.    
  
The day after the dancers arrive is Hiroko’s day off, and she starts to walk towards the beach when she hears a voice call after her.    
  
“Hey, hey girl. Onsen girl.”   
  
Minako catches up to her, breathless and grinning sharply, “You fish people are fucking fast.”   
  
It startles a smile out of Hiroko, being considered one of the towns people. For as long as she’s been there everyone’s known her as the girl from Tokyo; and this stranger who doesn’t know anything about her can tell how well she fits in here. It’s a bit of a romanticization, but Toshiya has shown her, that if nothing else, she deserves a bit of romance in her life. Maybe, considering the situation she’s in, he’s given her too much romance.    
  
Minako lowers her voice before Hiroko can even greet her, “I saw the tests.”   
  
In the same breath she brought a smile to Hiroko’s face, Minako tears it away.   
  
Hiroko wants to deny it, say they aren’t hers, but Minako goes on,

“Me too, I just,” There’s a hesitance in her voice as she continues, “I wanna know what you’re going to do.”   
  
And Hiroko knows, that in this moment there’s an unwitting sisterhood forming between them. That shifts them from strangers to two women- girls really, when she truly looks at the dancer-with an intimate bond. And so, she’s truthful.   
  
“I don’t know.”   
  
The two of them walk the half an hour to the beach in companionable silence, and when it’s broken it’s Hiroko who speaks up first.   
  
“I know ways, to get rid of children if you don’t want them.”   
  
“I can’t keep it, not if I want to be a dancer. Not if I want to keep my ballet.”   
  
Hiroko understands what it means to keep children but to lose yourself, so she nods. She doesn’t ask question that aren’t important; doesn’t ask who the father is, or if she’s sure that it’s what she wants to do.    
  
Instead she asks her how far along she thinks she is and tells her of coat hangers, and teas, and blood thinners.    
  
They spend the day together, and their conversation moves on from that. It gets light and it gets dark, and they learn everything about the other person in the way that strangers are easier to talk to.    
  
Hours later, when the sun is setting and the two of them are walking quietly back into the onsen, the silence is broken once again,   
  
“I’m leaving for Tokyo tomorrow with the rest of the girls, after all this I think we should at least know each others names.”   
  
“Hiroko”   
  
The dancer nods, “I’m Minako” she says before she leaves to join the rest of her group.   
  
They know they won’t see each other again.   
  
\----   
  
There’s a level of irony that Hiroko can appreciate in the fact that the second time they meet is because Yuuri wants to start dance classes. 

****  
It’s almost twelve years later and Yuuri only just turned five, but he’s determined to do ballet, and there’s a retired dancer from Tokyo that just opened up a dance school around them.   
  
It’s not that Hiroko has forgotten about the dancer, but it was a single day a lifetime ago. She certainly isn’t expecting for her to be the teacher of her son’s ballet classes. And even though a decade had passed between the two of them, and even though they had only spent hours together a lifetime ago, all of that falls away when they make eye contact. They hug like old friends, and Hiroko introduces Yuuri.  
  
“This is my son,” and Minako smiles softly, lowers her voice to ask  
  
“The other one, did you--“  
  
“I kept her, she’s eleven now.”   
  
They become friends after that, real friends, joined together by more than just a single moment, joined together by the progression of Yuuri’s life.  
  
It’s Minako Yuuri goes to for dance, and it’s Minako Yuuri goes to for skating, and it’s Minako Yuuri goes to when he cries. There is a part of Hiroko, a small, hidden, miniscule part that wants to be jealous; but there is a much larger part of Hiroko that is grateful, so greatful that Yuuri will always have someone to turn to when she and Toshiya are not enough. When his fears of disappointing them blind him to the love they have for him.  
  
It comes as no surprise then, at the baby shower, when Hiroko finds out that Yuuri went to Minako for advice before he announced the pregnancy to them.   
  
As the night comes to a close, when it’s just Minako and Hiroko in one of the innumerable silences of their friendship Minako speaks,  
  
“Our boy’s all grown up,” she says, and there’s so much fondness in her voice Hiroko aches with it.  
  
“Yes,” Hiroko agrees, “he really has."  
\---  
It hurts a little, driving Yuuri and Viktor off to the airport, especially so soon after the baby shower, but Hiroko knows that she has to let them go. Let Yuuri be in Russia with Viktor, give birth in a foreign country, away from all his family and friends. Not because he’s following the man that he loves, but because of his commitment to the dreams that he has.   
  
She no longer sees her mother’s reflection in Yuuri’s face.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> There are some serious topics covered here so just refer to the tags if you're concerned. But most things are referenced or implied as opposed to explicitly discussed.


End file.
